"Dividing the Oils of War"
by David Haggith
Excerpt: "The new Donroe Doctrine is already taking shape around Venezuela’s vast oil plays. Chevron has just contracted eleven tankers to start transporting oil out of Venezuela, making Big, Big Oil the obvious winner. The normally pro-Trump, but always more pro-Putin Zero Hedge notes,
With the Monroe Doctrine effectively rebranded as the “Don-Roe Doctrine,” reflecting the Trump administration’s new approach to exerting control and influence across the Western Hemisphere and rooting out China and Russia, the developments this past weekend involving U.S. Delta Force operators capturing Maduro do not come as much of a surprise.
Consistent with the Don-Roe Doctrine, Chevron has contracted a fleet of tankers scheduled to arrive in Venezuela later this month, reinforcing its role as the dominant player, for now, a critical conduit for Venezuelan crude into US refineries along the Gulf of America.
The fact is that Chevron already had the largest footprint in Venezuelan oil of any company on earth, so this is no surprise. If this was all that happened, you might just think Chevron was continuing to do what it does every month. While eleven tankers is more than Chevron has contracted for the last two months, the lower numbers were during an unsteady oil embargo when bombs were dropping on boats. Now that the US Navy and Coast Guard are fully in place on the seas around Venezuela and now that the US has settled who is running the show, tanker companies working with US Chevron are probably more comfortable running more ships or, at least, making it easer for Chevron to find ships that want to contract for hauls in the region.
Shares of Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil have jumped on news of regime change in Venezuela, and oil prices are hovering at one-year lows. However, Chevron’s step back to normal in tanker flow was far from the big thing happening today. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil, which will be sold at market prices. “That money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” Trump said in a social media post….
The 50 million barrels are only the first tranche and shipments will continue indefinitely. You can be sure it will mostly be to the benefit of the United States. “Benefiting the people of Venezuela” by the outpouring of oil from the country is - if this goes like most neocon big-oil wars - mostly window dressing to sell your war to the American people. We’ll have to see who gets the biggest cut from the oil profits that are left after extraction and shipping costs. Proceeds from the oil sales will settle in U.S. controlled accounts, the sources said, with the money released back to Venezuela at the discretion of the U.S.
Well, we do have the power to take the oil; so, of course, it belongs to us if you accept Stephen Miller’s primary ethic as he stated it repeatedly yesterday. Energy Secretary Chris Wright later confirmed the plan at a conference hosted by Goldman Sachs in Miami on Wednesday. “We’re going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela,” Wright said. “First this backed up, stored oil and then indefinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace….” “Secretary Wright remains in close contact with U.S. oil companies and plans to meet with several of them at the Goldman Sachs Energy Conference in Miami on Wednesday,” a Department of Energy spokesperson told CNBC.
So, yeah, we’ve got the oil and that is largely what this war was all about, not drugs; so we will convene a consortium to figure out how we are going to dive the plunder; but there is more in the geopolitical sphere (a lot more) to all of this. You may recall my speculating that gaining leverage over China right where it hurts was likely a big part of this oil play. We got confirmation of that today."
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